qualitative research questions examples in sport

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A Qualitative Study of 11 World-Class Team-Sport Athletes’ Experiences Answering Subjective Questionnaires: A Key Ingredient for ‘Visible’ Health and Performance Monitoring?

Alan mccall.

1 Arsenal Performance and Research Team, Arsenal Football Club, London, UK

2 School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, UK

3 School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW Australia

4 Medical Department, Football Australia, Sydney, NSW Australia

Adrian Wolfberg

5 Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH USA

Andreas Ivarsson

6 School of Health and Welfare, Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden

7 Department of Sport Science and Physical Education, University of Agder, Agder, Norway

Gregory Dupont

8 School of Sport and Exercise, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

Amelie Larocque

9 University of Ottawa Law School, Ottawa, ON Canada

10 Geneva Graduate Institute of International Studies and Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland

Johann Bilsborough

11 New England Patriots, National Football League, Foxborough, MA USA

Athlete monitoring trends appear to be favouring objective over subjective measures. One reason of potentially several is that subjective monitoring affords athletes to give dishonest responses. Indeed, athletes have never been systematically researched to understand why they are honest or not.

Because we do not know what motivates professional athletes to be honest or not when responding to subjective monitoring, our objective is to explore the motives for why the athlete may or may not respond honestly.

A qualitative and phenomenological approach was used, interviewing 11 world-class team-sport athletes (five women, six men) about their experiences when asked to respond to subjective monitoring questionnaires. Interview transcripts were read in full and significant quotations/statements extracted. Meanings were formulated for each interviewees’ story and assigned codes. Codes were reflected upon and labelled as categories, with similar categories grouped into an overall theme. Themes were examined, articulated, re-interpreted, re-formulated, and written as a thematic story, drawing on elements reported from different athletes creating a blended story, allowing readers a feel for what it is like to live the experience.

Overall, four key themes emerged: (i) pursuit of the ideal-self, (ii) individual barriers to athlete engagement, (iii) social facilitators to athlete engagement; and (iv) feeling compassion from performance staff.

Conclusions

Our main insight is that athletes’ emotions play a major role in whether they respond honestly or not, with these emotions being driven at least in part by the performance staff asking the questions.

Introduction

In 2023, athlete health and performance monitoring continues to be one of the hottest topics in sports science and medicine (referred to herein after as ‘performance’) research as well as one of the most commonly used strategies by performance staff, for example, scientists, fitness coaches, doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists, etc. Athlete monitoring can include either or both ‘ objective’ and ‘subjective’ measures. Objective monitoring typically involves the use of technology and wearables to measure various surrogates of, for example, athletic performance (such as sports-specific fitness assessments), physiological levels (including maximal oxygen uptake, muscle force and power, heart-rate, etc.,) and biochemical status (by extracting blood, saliva, urinary markers, etc.,) . In contradistinction, subjective monitoring provides insight into psychosocial and psychobiological factors internal to the athlete such as mental fatigue, effort, perceived stress symptoms, well-being, and motivation [ 1 ]. These factors are typically assessed using self-report tools like the Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE), wellness items, perceptions of pain, psychological readiness, etc.

Importantly, objective and subjective monitoring are not interchangeable and give very different information [ 1 ]. Objective measures typically fragment observations to allow quantitative precision of metrics in isolation, whereas subjective measures reflect the blended input of multiple channels of information internal to the athlete [ 2 ]. Unfortunately, in athlete monitoring, and particularly in our experience in professional team-sports, performance staff and researchers seem to be relying more and more on objective monitoring. This trend is worrisome because subjective information has been shown to reflect acute and chronic training loads with superior sensitivity and consistency compared with objective ones [ 3 ]. Even a concept referred to as ‘invisible monitoring’ has been proposed, albeit with well meaning, to “lessen the burden on athletes” [ 4 ]. However, the operational definition of invisible monitoring has been stated as “gathering as much information about the athlete, their performance and their current training status, without them even knowing you’re doing it, in order to answer coach or performance driven questions” [ 4 ]. Invisible monitoring implies removing the athlete entirely from the monitoring process, but with this approach the consequence could be amassing unnecessary data that does not even reflect how the athlete actually feels, thus, increasing the likelihood of making ill-informed decisions about athletes’ full spectrum of health and performance capabilities.

Literature Review

Literature on subjective monitoring of athletes mentions the likelihood of athletes’ not giving honest responses, but the current literature is limited in its empirical justification of such claims [ 1 , 2 ]. In a study by Neupert et al. [ 5 ] in which nine female sprint water-sport athletes were interviewed, the majority of interviewees said that they responded honestly to training-monitoring questions. On the other hand, interviews including eight athletes from various high-level individual and team sports by Saw et al. [ 6 ] revealed that half of the athletes admitted withholding the truth on occasions through fear of punishment for not filling subjective questionnaires. To our knowledge there are no studies investigating athletes from the world’s major professional team-sports, for example, association football, rugby, basketball, American football, and baseball.

While not in a sports context, psychotherapy research may offer some additional valuable insights to further explore this topic and extend the work by Neupert et al. [ 5 ] and Saw et al. [ 6 ]. Instead of ‘honesty or dishonesty’, psychotherapy typically discusses this as ‘patient/client disclosure’ and its counterparts, i.e., concealment, secrets and lies [ 7 ]. In a psychotherapy review, Farber [ 7 ] explains that all patients at least occasionally conceal information or lie, with concealment being far more common than outright lying, and most of the time patients are actually quite open and honest. Patients concealing information or lying tends to be spontaneous ‘of the moment’ reactions, with other factors affecting responses that include: patients’ general comfort level in revealing stressful information; the nature of the patients’ character type; therapists’ responsiveness to disclosures, their experiences of previous disclosures (i.e., were they helpful in the past), and demographic factors such as ethnicity and culture (i.e., different cultures with different norms about what is appropriate to disclose). These insights appear to correspond with the earlier work in sports [ 5 , 6 ], but require further investigation to advance knowledge in the sports domain.

In the area of sports performance, there are also anecdotal claims of athletes being dishonest in response to subjective monitoring questionnaires by performance staff and researchers at conferences and on social media. However, for claims of subjective monitoring ‘not being worth the effort because athletes tell lies’ there are also some anecdotal claims of the opposite experience, where staff and researchers’ perception and experiences are that the athletes they work with do provide open and honest responses. Hence, to our knowledge, the gap in the literature is that there are few, if any, systematic studies particularly in professional team-sports to shed light on why athletes do or do not tell the truth, nor what would drive them to be honest or dishonest. We have no advanced, a priori, theoretical or empirical knowledge as to what is going on in the context of the athletes’ minds regarding what is motivating them to answer honestly or not, and this should be investigated to better understand the phenomenon and to guide practical strategies.

Although sparsely investigated in sports performance literature, there are some studies [ 6 , 8 – 10 ] lending support to the notion that athlete monitoring strategies should ideally be easy and quick where athletes are educated on what is being done and why as well as being adequately communicated to in follow-ups about the information they provide. However, a survey published in 2022 by Neupert and colleagues [ 11 ] found that feedback processes from monitoring strategies were largely felt to be ineffective, with 44% of respondents stating that athletes did not receive sufficient feedback, and in some cases the collected data were never even discussed with the athletes and/or coaches. This further supports the literature gap about athletes being honest or not, as we do not why, only that they may be or may not be.

Given the clear gap in the literature about professional team-sport athletes being honest or not or indeed what motivates their level of honesty in response to subjective monitoring, the current debate in sports performance lacks scientific investigation, and, consequently, provides little value to performance staff and their team management. While it has also been suggested that athletes’ responses might be dependent upon the wording of the questions [ 12 ], we take a step back from questionnaire phraseology and the logistics of a protocol, and delve into athletes’ experiences of answering subjective monitoring questionnaires. Therefore, the focus for us is not on the data collection format of the monitoring process through the questionnaire itself, but rather it is an exploratory study about the perspective and experiences of the athlete at the receiving end of the process. What is it about the experiences of the athletes that makes them want to engage honestly or alternatively to withdraw and disengage? Hence, our research question is, why do athletes respond honestly or not when being asked to respond to subjective monitoring questionnaires? This should bring us more in direct contact with the athletes when being asked these questions.

To improve transparency, the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) [ 13 ] (21 items) and the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies (COREQ) [ 14 ] (COREQ) (32-item checklist) were applied.

Research Team and Reflexivity

The present authors comprise one female (AL) and five males (AM, JB, AW, GD, AI). AL (Msc) is an experienced delegate working and researching in the humanitarian sector, skilled in international law, foreign affairs and human rights. AM, JB and GD are PhD sport scientists and researchers, each with over 20 years’ experience as staff and researchers in world-class-level team sports. This experience includes leading and/or consulting in performance and research departments, and being part of national and international championship winning teams including men’s French, Scottish, Spanish leagues, National cups, UEFA Champions League, FIFA World Cup and NFL Superbowl. AI is a PhD psychology researcher and sport psychology consultant practising in world class and elite level sports teams. AM, JB, GD and AI are all experienced in conducting and publishing quantitative research, while AI is also experienced in qualitative research methods. AW is a PhD phenomenologist and qualitative researcher with almost 20 years’ experience working in the field and research in the organizational behaviour area.

Authors AM, JB, GD and AI have experience with subjective monitoring, which has been overall positive in regards to obtaining engagement from athletes. However, we also clarify that in our experience this is not automatically positive; we have had to work hard and consistently to get the buy-in from athletes, some of whom can be particularly argumentative, dismissive or unengaging. However, our experience ‘selling’ subjective measures in practice has taught us that obtaining honest responses from athletes relies not only on the athletes answering but also how we as staff approach subjective monitoring. What drove the initial idea to investigate the phenomenon of subjective monitoring were the differences in AM’s typically eventual, overall positive experience with subjective athlete monitoring, while being aware of the constant reports of negative experiences and criticisms from different groups in practice, research, social media and, anecdotally, at conferences, etc.

Study Design

A phenomenological approach was chosen as the most appropriate using a series of one-to-one interviews to investigate the phenomenon of ‘athletes experiences when being asked to respond to subjective athlete monitoring questionnaires’, for example, s-RPE, wellness, sleep, fatigue, muscle soreness, psychological readiness, etc. Phenomenology is powerful in helping to understand a person’s experiences, which in this current study design involves the athletes’ experiences.

Sample Selection

Purposive sampling was chosen to identify and invite persons to be interviewed. To determine who to include in our sample, we used our own professional network and knowledge of team-sport athletes and sports staff—both performance staff and technical/tactical coaches—who we knew were working with athletes, and who would be willing to participate as interviewees. Because the study’s context is the application of the sports performance role in professional sports, we targeted athletes competing in the major professional team sports, i.e., Association Football, American Football, Basketball, Major League Baseball, Rugby Union and Rugby League. To achieve some diversity in the sample, we sought to include interviewees with varying experience levels by inviting those in any of the following three career stages: (1) world class youth level, i.e., competing at international team level; (2) world-class in the ‘prime’ of their careers, i.e., currently competing as first-team regulars in the best league and international competitions in the world, winning or at least being finalists in at least one major tournament defined as a “one time sporting event of an international scale organized by a ‘special authority’ and yielding extremely high levels of media coverage” [ 15 ]; and, (3) world-class but recently retired, i.e., having competed as first-team regulars in the best leagues and international competitions in the world, winning or at least being finalists in at least one major tournament and being chosen as the ‘best player’ in their sport at national or international level at least once. We therefore excluded athletes who did not have extensive experience in the phenomenon under study—responding to data collection efforts to assess subjective measures. We followed the criteria and decision-tree to qualify as a ‘world-class athlete’ defined by McKay and colleagues [ 16 ]. After identifying potential athletes, we either contacted them directly or via colleagues in our network. We aimed to continue athlete interviews until we deemed saturation was reached, i.e., when interviewees introduced no new perspectives on the topic [ 17 ].

Eighteen world-class team-sport athletes were invited for interview. Invited athletes included seven athletes from women’s sport teams and 11 from men’s sports teams, competing in the top leagues of countries covering six continents. Represented team-sports included association football (four female, four male), American football (one male), basketball (one female, one male), baseball (one male), rugby union (two female, two male), rugby league (two male). Four (one female, three male) invited athletes were recently retired (within 15 years), and two were youth athletes (one female, one male, both over 16 years old but less than 18 years old).

Altogether, 12 athletes accepted to be interviewed; however, one was excluded as the athlete’s level in English speaking made it difficult to conduct the interview in the same way as with the others. Therefore, in total, 11 athletes were interviewed and the transcriptions of their interviews included for thematic analysis. See Table ​ Table1 1 for athlete demographic profiles.

Overview of athletes’ profiles; demographics and athletic honours

Athletes were interviewed online using Microsoft Teams video call, and the appropriate day/time was negotiated to coincide with their schedule. The actual setting of athletes varied from in their own home to a training facility or team hotel prior the morning of a competitive match. Interviews were not audio or video recorded. The intention to record an interview can influence the decisions interviewees take about the information they share [ 18 ], and an effective interview is in part about enabling an environment in which interviewees feel comfortable to say what they want [ 19 ]. Indeed data quality with appropriately trained interviewers between audio-recorded transcripts and interview scripts written directly after an interview have been shown to be comparable in the detail captured [ 18 ]. Given the high-profile nature of the athletes—i.e., world-class with significant media attention surrounding them, and that, with the exception of one of them, they did not have any prior knowledge of or relationship with the interviewer(s)—it was decided by AM, JB and AI that athletes would likely be more open and willing to be ‘interviewed’ without a recording. Hand-written notes were taken during the interviews and typed up in their entirety within 30 min of completing the interviews. AM conducted nine out of the 11 interviews and two were performed by two alternative interviewers, not in the principal research group. While one athlete was proficient in English, this person requested to be interviewed in their mother tongue to ensure they fully understood and in return were understood by the interviewer and optimizing a two-way conversation. In the other instance, the athlete did not speak English. For these interviews, the additional interviewers performed a pilot interview with AM to ensure interviews and questions were structured, delivered and performed in as close a manner as AM would have done. These additional interviewers were fluent in English and translated from the native language to English after the cessation of the interview with the athletes. These two additional interviewers comprised a sport scientist and a sports physician experienced in working with world-class athletes and in scientific research. As with the principal research group, both had similar experiences and assumptions regarding subjective monitoring. Neither had any prior relationship with the athlete they interviewed. Interviews lasted between 30 and 45 min.

Data Collection Methods and Data Collection Instruments and Technologies

The interviews took place over a 1-year period from March 2021 to March 2022. An initial semi-structured interview guide was prepared taking into consideration aspects important for interview design [ 12 ]. The initial semi-structured interview was prepared by AM and AI and piloted with two athletes who were not involved in the study and known to AM. No changes were made to the initial interview guide.

Typed electronic records of the interviews were transferred onto Microsoft Excel. Files comprised separate columns where important full texts of interviews were winnowed to extract ‘quotations/statements’ deemed to be important and of interest, with additional columns prepared for the thematic analysis. Data analysis included (i) first pass : creating a code, (ii) second pass : converting the code to a category, and (iii) determination of each category into an overall theme , which is explained below, in data analysis. All raw interviews and participant information were de-identified and stored securely on Microsoft OneDrive by AM. Both AM and AI had access to a secure, private OneDrive shared folder.

Data Analysis

Deriving findings from the interviews requires recovering a theme(s) that is embodied and dramatized in the evolving meanings of the work [ 20 ]. The specific process performed by AM was based on accepted guidelines for qualitative research analysis [ 20 , 21 ]; First , the interviews were read in full to acquire a feeling for their ideas and to gain a deeper understanding. Second , significant quotations/statements were extracted by identifying key words and sentences relating to the phenomenon being investigated. Third , meanings for these statements were formulated. This process was repeated for each of the persons’ ‘stories’. Fourth , the quotations were re-read and reflected upon for each person separately, and a code assigned by writing a short sentence. Fifth , these short sentence codes were reflected upon to assign the most appropriate descriptive wording and labelled as a ‘category’. Sixth , a small number, typically five to eight, of overall ‘themes’ were generated to be shaped into a general description of the phenomenon, i.e., essence description [ 22 , 23 ], displaying the perspectives of the persons.

After this six-step process was completed, the quotations, codes, categories and themes generated were reviewed by AI, who created notes where clarification and further discussion were needed. AM and AI then collaboratively reflected on and discussed each theme, category, code and quotation. Themes and their relevant categories were then further reviewed by AW, who collaboratively reflected with AM and AI to generate the final agreed upon themes. The themes were then examined, articulated, re-interpreted and re-formulated [ 22 ], and eventually written as a thematic story, drawing on elements reported from different athletes to create a blended story, allowing the reader to get a feel for what it is like to live the experience [ 24 ].

Steps have been taken by our research team to maximize and demonstrate the validity of the study [ 20 ]: (i) Member checking where a final report was returned to interviewees to determine whether or not they felt it accurately reflected their experiences and the insights they gave. (ii) Clarifying the bias of the researcher(s)— in the ‘reflexivity’ section of our article we clarify the potential bias that principal researcher AM and the research team may bring to the study through their own experiences and beliefs. (iii) By presenting negative/discrepant information , i.e., in the narrative we discuss ‘surprising’ codes that went contrary to our potential bias. (iv) Spending prolonged time in the field— we have provided earlier, a detailed overview of our credentials working in the practical setting, which demonstrate our in-depth understanding of the phenomenon under study. (v) Peer debriefing— where an independent person is located to review and ask questions about the qualitative study so that the account resonates with people other than the researcher. (vi) An external auditor— as distinct from a peer debriefer, the auditor is not familiar with the researcher or the project and provides an independent ‘peer’ review of the project.

Four themes emerged from the data analysis of the interviews. These were pursuit of ideal self, individual barriers to athlete engagement, social facilitators to athlete engagement, and experiencing compassion from the performance staff (see Figs. ​ Figs.1, 1 , ​ ,2, 2 , ​ ,3 3 and ​ and4). 4 ). The ensuing text describes each of these themes with quotations from athletes used to support the athletes’ claims, illustrate ideas, and illuminate experience [ 25 ].

Factors supporting the theme ‘pursuit of ideal self’

Factors supporting the theme ‘individual barriers to athlete engagement’

Factors supporting the theme ‘social facilitators to athlete engagement’

Factors supporting the theme ‘experiencing compassion from the performance staff’

Pursuit of Ideal Self

‘Ideal self’ is a driver for intentional change [ 26 ] and was a key theme of discussion by athletes, i.e., the athletes’ preferred future regarding their professional sporting goals. Their pursuit—their motivational drive to improve and become a better athlete and curiosity about what they can do to achieve this—was described by all of the interviewees as an important part of their reasoning when deciding how to respond to subjective monitoring questionnaires. The pursuit of the ideal-self theme is grouped into three categories: drive to be better; curiosity about new processes; and growing self-awareness. Quotes from three of the athletes expressing this motivational drive are:

• “ We are so competitive, if we think something will give us an edge and we don’t take it, then there is something seriously wrong” (A7).
• “I am a player who always took care of my body and I understood quickly that this type of information was for my benefit” (A5).
• “I'm an inquisitive person, I like to know why we are doing things. The more I know for myself, I can put it into my own regimen and learn how to care of myself” (A4).

Athletes also described the importance of recognizing that their real, current self evolves over a career as they become more aware of themselves, their bodies, and their goals. Several athletes discussed how, in general, their approach has been one of being willing to answer honestly. They understood that some athletes may be reluctant to give honest responses depending on each individual persons’ circumstances and past experiences, and acknowledged that they themselves had experienced similar reluctant feelings throughout their careers. One athlete said:

• ”How players respond depends on their experience and age, like the younger and older players…not everyone recognises that being tired or finding a session hard is just a normal part of training and being an athlete.. you learn this with experience” (A8).

Another athlete had a similar reflection:

• “I can see how some people could give a dishonest answer but it comes down to that person and being professional” (A1) .

Two athletes described the change in response pattern as:

• “How you respond to changes throughout your career, depending what stage you are at the more honest you will be” (A10).
• “I’m old enough now to know that they’re [staff] not going to make me run more [i.e., based on the response they give], as I get older I get to understand the process better, once we get to that point it’s easy to be honest” (A11).

Individual Barriers to Athlete Engagement

Individual barriers to athlete engagement can refer to intrapersonal aspects related to negative emotions, such as the negative effect of fear, and perceptions of doubt and scepticism about handing over personal subjective information about how they are feeling. More specifically, fear about mistreatment or dismissing of the athletes’ responses, i.e., their own data, is among the strongest mechanisms for the unwillingness to engage with honest responses to subjective monitoring questionnaires. The individual barriers theme is grouped into four categories: not being treated like human beings; feeling sceptical of intentions; fear of feelings being dismissed; and fear of overactive responses in response to feelings.

Athletes consistently described the importance of feeling like they are being considered and treated as human beings, where their own unique concerns, fears, desires and needs are considered, and the awareness that they are dealing with their own ‘things’ inside and outside of the sporting team. As an example, two athletes explained the importance of not being recognized as individual human beings:

• “Acknowledge who people are, recognise and celebrate people, their cultures, families, what’s important to them. We have a lot of nationalities, Pacific Islanders, English, Irish, Australians…, if you can make them feel important and that the organisation is a family, they will get a sense of belonging and buy in to what the organisation is trying to do” (A7).
• “Understand what else is going on and respond to the circumstances like travel and other stresses [family, social]….you can't tell different types of stress with the external load sensors, what about family, social stresses, travel, too” (A4).

The concept of ‘invisible monitoring’ came up in the interviews. Upon learning what this strategy entails, one athlete reacted with some confusion that this was actually used in teams:

• “I’d feel like a robot. You need to know people care for you. Don’t try and take the human out of it…. Human interaction is so important” (A2).

The second athlete discussing this concept reacted angrily:

• “I’m not a f**king science experiment, invisible monitoring to me, is cr*p, it’s my body, I need to know what is going on… these staff only care about themselves, making themselves look better and getting an increase in salary”. (A11).

Although treating athletes as the individual human beings that they are was described as being key to getting honest responses, it was acknowledged as a potential limitation in certain circumstances:

• “ The human aspect [to subjective monitoring] is definitely a limitation…. If we are angry, you’re more likely to get a short or very reactive reply… but human interaction is so important, especially when it’s someone I like to talk to" (A2).

There was a feeling of being sceptical about the intended use of the information, for example, being used against them before their contract negotiations, or match selection, when asked through subjective monitoring. This scepticism played prominently in athletes’ minds when deciding whether or not to respond honestly. Scepticism was particularly heightened when questionnaires were introduced without prior warning or consultation with the athletes themselves, for example, through formal or informal communications, education sessions, etc.

One athlete reflected,

• “I ask myself how honest should I be?…how is this going to be used?” (A4).

Another athlete described their thoughts when being asked;

• “I’m always trying to be honest, but I’m also thinking how trustable are the staff?” (A9).

A third athlete stated:

• ”If it’s something you’ve never asked me before or I don’t know you, I’ll be like ‘what the h*ll’… is ‘xxxx’[e.g. the coach] going to see this?… if you rock up randomly and ask me these questions, I’m going to think ‘this is a bit weird’, what are you going to do with my information? (A8).

Another reason for the scepticism, especially without information about how the results are used, was related to the perceived impact on the chance of playing. One athlete stated that:

• "We might think that we won’t train or play depending on how we answer” (A5).

Another athlete reflected:

• “ Some players might not be comfortable with them [the staff] because they are wary of them” (A10).

One athlete discussed a specific experience they had where their subjective information had been used against them:

• “I’m pretty good at keeping my cards close to my chest, in x [the league], people [performance staff] can be so variable across the league and other teams, not many are in it for us [i.e. to improve the players’ health and/or performance levels], those guys in [the team], they’re there to sell themselves first and then worry about me, they want a better contract so they used the information to make themselves look better… they definitely presented everything negatively about me at the end of the season, they used it to make them look better; ‘he’s lazy, he’s out of shape, he hasn’t been reporting properly… I’ll now go to the GM [General Manager] and tell them if I don’t trust the staff and that he [i.e. the staff] might not trust me but just so he’s [the GM] aware there might be some mismatches in what he’s told” (A11).

A fear of their feelings being dismissed or staff over-reacting also drove their thought process about whether or not to respond honestly. One athlete expressed:

• “Your reaction to our responses is important, if we can tell that you are not taking us seriously we won’t answer properly… don’t antagonise us and don’t judge our answers” (A2).

Another athlete described a specific experience of perceiving their feelings being dismissed at times when not in the starting squad for a match and being asked to rate how hard sessions were and how they were feeling:

• “If you’re in the practice squad, they [performance staff] wouldn’t give a s**t, they [performance staff] would only care about the guys who were going to be playing, so why even ask us because whatever we said it didn’t even matter” (A11).

Social Facilitators to Athlete Engagement

Social facilitators to athlete engagement was one distinct theme that emerged. Social facilitators refer to perceptions by the athletes based on their experiences and beliefs about what staff within the performance team do, and/or can do to improve athlete engagement through facilitating the provision of information/data. These social facilitators are grouped into four categories that reflect different types of preferred actions: being communicated to about what will change; feeling time and commitments as a pro athlete are respected; simple, fast and efficient methods of collection; and demonstrable change and impact to the training program.

Being informed prior to the implementation of subjective questionnaires and educated about what change(s) will happen based on their information was highlighted by athletes as a key element of obtaining honest and accurate responses. One athlete, for example, discussed this importance especially when players are not familiar with subjective questionnaires:

• “Professional players are not used to it [answering scales], if they didn’t start these when they were youth players… How players respond probably depends on their age and experience, like the young and older players… not everyone recognises that being tired or finding a session hard is just a normal part of training and being an athlete (A5).

About the relevance of educating the athletes another reflected:

• “Educating us on what you are doing and why would help us understand and more likely then to buy into it…expose the next generation to the methods, and the work you are doing” (A8) .

Similar reflections were provided by another two athletes who stated:

• “We want to know why we are doing things, to see how we are feeling and if something needs to be changed (A4).
• “Educate the players why you’re doing it, xxxx [the head of performance) did a lot of talking to everyone, as a group, to the individual players… It’s a lot of trial and error, trying to get the guys to do it… be persistent but you have to learn the persistence needed for each player… explaining on an individual level is important, explain to us the context, what it means to us [i.e. each individual player], how it will benefits us, you’re doing it to make our career better, little things like that” (A11).

Athletes discussed their feelings and reactions to either experiencing no impact or experiencing positive impact, for example, changes to the training programme, based on the information they provide in subjective monitoring questionnaires. Having a demonstrable meaning or purpose to the information they are providing was key to giving honest responses. One athlete said:

“The biggest thing is why? What changes are happening”? (A1) .

When there are no meaningful changes or a positive impact to the programme, athletes described the following scenarios;

• “ Poor quality information or lack of practical information in a simple way we can understand are the main reasons why in my opinion, players do not answer correctly [i.e. with deliberately misleading responses]” (A5).
• ”If you don’t come to see me, or I don’t see changes to my program or preparation I’ll just put anything. If you don’t react to the questionnaires, then I’m done…. I have experience where staff don’t follow the results… then I am not honest all of the time” (A3).
• “I need to see validation of what they [staff] are doing with the results, if nothing changes from 2 weeks before I can tell you don’t give a cr*p…I’ll then just give you a different score than I really feel, probably like 1 or 2 points different just because I know you are expecting something to be different, but it’s not really how I feel [i.e., deliberately misleading response]” (A11).

However, when positive changes are seen and felt by the athletes, they were more prone to buy in to the process and give honest responses. One athlete stated:

• “ If my information is acted upon [i.e. used to improve the training program] then I’ll tell the truth, regardless of the person” (A3).

Another athlete explained:

• “…we want to see that our workouts are adjusted based on our feedback… as soon as we understood that it’s impacting our personal programmes, we were much happier to buy in…. as it gets more consistent we become more likely to be honest” (A2).

A third athlete expressed:

• “The staff need to use the information and communicate it back to us… like 15 min pre-meeting in the morning. It would be good to get feedback from the coach if they change something based on how we are feeling, like ‘you boys are tired so we changed this or that'” (A9).

A strong desire for the subjective monitoring to be seamlessly integrated into the overall training programme was discussed by the athletes. In general, most athletes’ experiences centred around how quick, simple and timely the questionnaires are and that they believe the staff genuinely respect their time and other commitments they have as professional athletes. Three quotes from the athletes illustrating this:

• “ Overdoing it especially the wellness questionnaire can be a bad thing… if it’s too regular I would give the same answers or maybe only differ by one point” (A9).

Another athlete explained,

• “I don't want to be annoyed every morning by someone asking me all the time, like a nagging thing” (A1).
• “ The simpler you make things for us, the better, we have enough going on being a professional player” ( A10).
• “You maybe have about 5% of our time with our full attention, everyone’s trying to get to us, so make the most of it” (A11).

Interestingly, it also shone through that an ‘integrated process’ is subject to individual athlete preferences;

• “It definitely depends on the individual person ” [about how they will respond] (A1).

Although most athletes preferred to be asked subjective questionnaires in-person, this was not the case for everyone, as illustrated by three of the athletes below:

• “I prefer the phone [to answer wellness questionnaires], as we are always on our phones, and it’s easy” (A1).
• “I prefer the app, it’s in my own time, it becomes routine, it’s just me and I can be totally honest” (A10).
• “I like when people talk to me, I feel like they care” (A2).

Experiencing Compassion from the Performance Staff.

Athletes expressed feelings about needing and experiencing compassion from the performance staff to be key to getting honest responses to subjective monitoring. The theme of compassion is grouped into three categories: feeling genuinely cared for by performance staff; feeling genuine passion and effort from the performance staff; and feeling actively involved by the performance staff, in particular, where the sports staff are able to demonstrate their passion, work ethic, commitment and authenticity to the individual athletes and the group as a whole. One athlete expressed the importance of relationships:

• “ Build relationships with us, we want to see how passionate you are about your role in the organisation…. then you will gain our respect” (A7).

Another athlete highlighted the importance of empathy:

• ”Build relationships and convince us that you have our best interests at heart” (A10).

The importance of empathy and recognizing the emotional state of the athletes at the time of being asked and how these questions may stir specific emotions was emphasized by two athletes:

• “ Emotions talk… if we are angry, you’re more likely to get a short or reactive reply” (A2). “One negative thing is that for wellness questionnaires it can bring the athletes mind to a particular soreness, all of a sudden I’d be drawn to focus on that hammy [hamstring] soreness and amplify it.. does it feel worse because I am focusing on it now?” (A7).

A feeling of consistency was often described by athletes as a key part of their decision to be accurate and honest with regard to subjective questionnaires as well as their experience and growing self-awareness. This same consistency was highlighted as also being able to recognise potentially negative emotions and to answer without giving in to these.

• “Emotions talk, as it gets more consistent [i.e. the whole subjective monitoring process] we become more likely to be honest” (A2).

The susceptibility of responding to someone with whom you do not have a good relationship was exemplified by one of the athletes:

• “I’ll be honest with my national team coach because I trust him, but I’ll ask if he is giving the data to [name] in my club team, because I don’t want him to see it, I don’t know what he does with my information” (A7).

The ability of the staff to create an environment where the athletes feel at ease, genuinely cared for, and involved in a conversation about their subjective feelings helps athletes to believe that the persons asking the questions have their best interests at heart. This was stated by several of the athletes:

• “It’s nice to know people care for you, don’t try and take the human out of it” (A2).

Another athlete expressed:

• “I appreciated that staff were listening and taking an interest in how I was feeling or any complaints I had….this made me feel comfortable to invest and answer honestly” (A5).

One athlete explained that, as long as a trusting relationship had been built with the main person responsible for acting on the information, they would be honest, no matter who asked them the subjective questions:

• “I would tell anyone [an honest response] because I knew they would tell xxxx [the head of performance] anyway and I knew he was in it for us and would use the information to make us better” (A11).

Also the importance of involving the athletes in the process was stressed. One athlete said:

• ”Other factors are involved, like a big game coming up.. if my hammies are sore I’ll probably want to water it down a bit, but if you speak to me, involve me in the process like saying ‘ok, how can we modify this training session to keep you fresh for the game” (A7)

How staff can work to establish a high-quality relationship was illustrated by one of the athletes:

• ”Build person to person relationships, have a conversation while you’re in the gym, like ‘how did you feel there mate?.. it’s like you’re having a coffee with them’” (A7).

The purpose of this study was to understand why world-class professional team-sport athletes—both men and women—are honest or not when asked to respond to subjective monitoring questionnaires. In our findings, we identified four themes regarding why athletes are honest or not in responding to subjective monitoring instruments. All four are related to the athletes’ emotions. Just because performance staff must deal with emotions does not mean that subjective monitoring cannot be valid indicators of performance. These emotional needs provide insight into what performance staff can do to address these needs and achieve meaningful results from subjective monitoring.

What our study reveals is that not only are athletes driven by emotion, but, just as importantly, these can be the direct result of the relationship between the performance staff and the athlete, highlighting the importance of this interaction. Table ​ Table2 2 and the section below divide the emotional needs into temporal and spatial ones that athletes possess and how performance staff can respond in order to be responsive to these emotions.

Attending to athletes’ temporal and spatial needs

Attending to Athletes’ Temporal Needs

Athletes have emotional needs that occur temporally, in the present and are targeted towards the future, which need to be fulfilled to facilitate honesty in responding to subjective monitoring instruments.

Performance Staff Encouragement in Athletes’ Achieving their Future Ideal Self

The athletes interviewed described their pursuit to become the best athlete they can, which aligns with the concept of the ‘ideal self’. The ideal self represents the preferred future and importance of a person’s dreams or aspirations in motivating change or the development driver of intentional change in one’s behaviour, emotions, perceptions and attitudes [ 27 ]. Creating a positive vision can facilitate perceptions of hope [ 27 – 29 ], which in turn stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, resulting in increased openness, cognitive power, and flexibility [ 27 ]. When the ideal self is envisioned by the individual, it can guide actions and decisions in a direction that facilitates improved self-satisfaction through articulation and direction towards the emergence of a new state of being with self-actualization as a core quality [ 26 ]. The athletes interviewed consistently described their own growing self-awareness as important in their evolution of becoming the athlete they want to become, i.e. realizing who they actually are at that present moment in time. In accordance with the ideal self, acknowledging the current, i.e., real, self, and the discrepancy between this and the ideal self, is a powerful motivator for change [ 26 ]. Feeling and believing that performance staff are doing their best to genuinely help them achieve their ideal self appears to be a strong motivator for honest engagement in subjective monitoring practices.

Performance Staff Mitigation of Athletes’ Fear in the Present

The athletes interviewed stated their own internal barriers that negatively affect their ability to be open and honest when responding to subjective monitoring questionnaires [ 26 ]. These barriers included feelings of fear that the information they provide may be misused and/or their responses may be dismissed as trivial, made fun of or misinterpreted, for example, performance staff over-reacting, as well as scepticism about the overall intentions of performance staff. Such feelings led athletes to describe potential but significant trust issues with performance staff. A major issue for performance staff is trying to obtain honest responses from athletes who have perceptions of fear. Such fear can alter a person’s perception of the environment to be more threatening than it really is, resulting in defensive or hostile actions, in the person being more likely to withdraw or inhibit new thoughts and alternative ways to approach a situation [ 26 ]. The feelings described by the athletes in our study correspond to a fear that links closely with the psychotherapy literature, where the most common self-reported motives for lies and concealment of information are to avoid both shame and the therapist’s over-reaction or that the therapist will not understand a particular issue [ 7 ]. The person’s—for example in our study, the athlete’s—experience, either good or bad, will drive how the person reacts in future [ 7 ]. Our findings demonstrate that claims of the proper wording of questions in subjective monitoring questionnaires as the basis for inaccurate responses due to misinterpretation is not the entire explanation for why answers may be dishonest, but rather that they relate to an intentional dishonest response. Our findings extend those by Neurpert et al. [ 5 ] that emergence of emotions such as fear may result in deliberate dishonesty and strongly suggest that a consideration must include the emotions invoked in athletes through the performance staff’s communication behaviours and actions with them.

Attending to Athletes’ Spatial Needs

Athletes also have emotional needs that, when fulfilled, support honesty in responding to subjective monitoring instruments that occur spatially in the information flow and in the interaction between performance staff and athletes.

Performance Staff Transparency and Information Flow Feedback with Athletes

The theme ‘social facilitators for athlete engagement’ described by our athletes centred around their experiences and subsequent emotions invoked about how subjective monitoring is implemented and facilitated in their team. Athletes explained how the performance staff’s methods and approaches to subjective monitoring can drive concealment, honesty or outright lying, i.e., how performance staff affect athlete ‘engagement’ in the process. Engagement can be described as the simultaneous employment and expression of a person’s preferred, i.e., ideal, self in task behaviours promoting connections to work and to others, and personal presence, whether physical, cognitive, or emotional [ 30 ]. ‘Disengagement’ refers to the uncoupling of selves from work roles where people withdraw and defend themselves physically, cognitively, and/or emotionally [ 30 , 31 ]. The athletes’ experiences suggest that performance staff do not always facilitate—intentionally or unintentionally—an engaging process, and/or an environment that fosters honest and open responses. Our findings support previous research that a process facilitating subjective monitoring should be simple, efficient and, by design, engaging. However, our study provides additional insight into ‘why’ it should be this way, i.e., it is an opportunity to elicit positive emotions that actually motivate athletes’ to be honest. Additionally, we demonstrate a deeper appreciation of the impact that transparency can have in convincing athletes to be honest. While research has suggested the importance of educating and communicating with athletes on what is being done in regards to subjective monitoring questionnaires, we show ‘why’ this is actually important. Specifically, a two-step process must occur: first, athletes need to experience and therefore believe that there is meaning/purpose to what they are being asked to do; and second, once they are convinced of the meaning, this then needs to be demonstrated through consistent behaviour and action of the performance staff through feedback and impact to training. Meaningfulness specifically refers to the extent that people derive meaning from their work and feel that they are receiving a return on investment, where they feel worthwhile, useful, valuable and not taken for granted [ 31 ]. This is essentially what the athletes in our study are seeking, and by doing so, the return on investment for the efforts of the performance staff themselves will be honest engagement; in other words, everybody wins.

Performance Staff Development of an Interpersonal, Cooperative Relationship with Athletes

Athletes' desire that performance staff treat them with compassion, represents an important behaviour of the performance staff that can elicit positive emotions through feeling convinced about staff intentions and therefore opening up athletes’ honesty. Compassion can be described as consisting of three principal components: (1) empathizing with the other, (2) caring for the other, and (3) acting in response to the other’s feelings [ 32 , 33 ]. Essentially, compassion can be viewed as noticing another’s need or desire, and by ‘coaching them with compassion’, we are focusing on invoking the ideal self to initiate and guide the change process [ 33 ]. Compassion’s function is the maintenance of cooperative relationships [ 34 ], and to be successful, the coach, i.e., performance practitioner in our example, must establish and cultivate a trusting relationship with the athlete so they discuss their hopes and dreams openly, and develop in them a sense of safety to explore new thinking and development [ 35 ]. For the athletes in this study, an essential part of feeling compassion from performance staff was being actively involved in both the subjective and the overall monitoring process. While getting buy-in from players is not always easy, the trend to remove the athlete from the process, for example, through ‘invisible monitoring’, does not appear to correspond with how athletes see the full benefits of a health and performance monitoring program. Based on our results, it is more likely that ‘visible’ monitoring where athletes are actively involved, for example, through coaching with compassion, will arouse positive emotions and healthy psychophysiological systems helping them become more open to new possibilities, grow and renew themselves, leading to favourable outcomes at the individual, dyad, group and organizational levels [ 33 ].

Limitations

For the reasons stated in the Methods section, the authors of this study made the intentional decision not to record interviews. It is always a risk doing so because not all information will be captured by the interviewer. However, the benefits outweigh this risk by acquiring thick descriptions of the phenomenon of interest. Consequently, we have taken several steps to maximize and demonstrate the qualitative validity of our findings and our interpretive discussion. We implemented ‘member checking’ to ensure the athletes interviewed felt our account of their experiences was accurate. We clarified researcher bias based on our own personal views and experience in the reflexivity section earlier in our article. Additionally, we included both a peer debriefer and an external auditor to review and provide feedback on the manuscript prior to submission. We also acknowledge that we focused specifically on world-class professional team sport athletes and the experiences of amateur or semi-professional team sport athletes as well as individual sport athletes and/or athletes competing at elite, amateur or recreational levels may have different and/or unique experiences that relate specifically to them. We also realise that we have interviewed athletes only, and interviewing of performance staff to understand their experiences and the potential mutual role that both parties might play should be explored.

Practical Application

This study does not prescribe generalized methodologies, sets of techniques, or rules for acting as seen in ‘typical’ practical applications; rather, through an analytic way of thinking, we provide performance staff with insights that can strengthen the relationship between thoughtfulness and tact.

Cultivating trusting relationships with athletes and creating an environment that facilitates openness and honesty appear to be what athletes are seeking from performance staff. As performance staff we clearly need to have self-awareness around how athletes might perceive and experience our behaviours and actions toward them and our power to invoke either negative or positive emotions in them. We can elicit positive emotions through helping athletes to become the best athlete they can, i.e., to be their ‘ideal self’, by behaving and acting genuinely and with consistency in a way that convinces athletes that we are genuinely there to help them and not just in it for ourselves.

We should reflect on our subjective monitoring protocols, being aware about which questionnaire(s) we use, how we implement them and when we ask questions. These are more than purely ‘logistical’ matters, but rather correspond to how an athlete will react emotionally and dictate their responses. Ultimately, we should ask ourselves, are we truly caring for the athlete? Are we really acting in response to how each individual person is feeling in the present and caring for their future? Are we coaching them with compassion? Overall, performance staff being aware of and tapping into athletes’ pursuit of their ideal selves and accompanying them on their journey to bridge the gap between their real and ideal self may represent a potentially powerful strategy for staff to get honest buy-in from athletes.

Future Directions

Our insights open up new and exciting areas for scientific investigation, in particular towards a deeper understanding of athletes’ pursuit of their ideal selves and how we can most effectively help them to transition toward their preferred future including their dreams, hopes and desires. This represents an exciting area for future research into athlete engagement and the role of emotions in providing honest responses. The implications are not only to be found in subjective monitoring but could be extended to the entire athlete preparation domain, and how we engage and build relationships with athletes throughout the entire health and performance process.

While other qualitative methodological studies cited in this article have studied athlete perceptions, our study is one of the few, to our knowledge, to describe and attempt to understand the “why” of whether athletes respond honestly to subjective monitoring questionnaires. Our findings revealed that the honesty of athlete responses may be largely driven by the emotions invoked within them in response to the behaviours and actions of performance staff asking the questions, with negative emotions fostering dishonesty and positive ones encouraging honesty. Positive emotions are experienced by athletes when they are convinced that performance staff are genuinely doing their best to help them to become the best athlete that they can be, that their time and effort is being respected, and that there is demonstrable meaning to them participating in subjective monitoring processes.

Acknowledgements

There are several people who have been integral to the successful completion of this project. We have decided not to name each person as this could open up the possibility of identifying potential athletes who have participated, for example, people linked to teams, nationalities, etc. We acknowledge and express our gratitude to everyone who has helped in this study and have sent them individual notes to explain why we will not include their names in the acknowledgments, but thank them on a personal basis.

Declarations

No funding was received for this project.

Alan McCall, Andreas Ivarsson, Gregory Dupont and Johann Bilsborough acknowledge their overall positive experience with implementing subjective monitoring questionnaires with athletes (albeit not necessarily easy). Adrian Wolfberg and Amelie Laroque declare no conflicts of interest.

Verbal informed consent was obtained from the athletes and ethical approval was granted through Edinburgh Napier University Ethics Committee (SAS/0080). Participants gave verbal informed consent after receiving a detailed explanation of the project. The study complied with the latest guidelines set out in the Declaration of Helsinki, apart from registration in a publicly accessible database.

AM and JB conceived the idea for the project and prepared the initial design drafts. AI and AW reviewed and provided feedback on the initial design and AM, JB, AI and AW worked on various versions including the version following feedback from peer debriefer until a final protocol was developed. AM and AW prepared the data collation sheet. AM conducted the interviews. JB was present for two interviews. AM piloted the interview with athletes and with two additional interviewers for the interviews conducted in other languages ( n  = 2). AM performed the initial thematic analysis. AI reviewed and AM and AI collaborated to define first full themes. AW reviewed this and together AM, AI, AW prepared the final thematic analysis for review by JB, GD and AL. AM drafted the first version of a manuscript, JB and AI provided input into this first version. Thereafter AM, AI and AW worked on five drafts of a manuscript. Draft 6 was reviewed by all authors who were involved until the final manuscript was submitted.

Adrian Wolfberg and Andreas Ivarsson are joint second authors.

Qualitative research in six sport and exercise psychology journals between 2010-2017: An updated and expanded review of trends and interpretations

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Qualitative Research in Sport and Physical Activity

• Ian Jones - Bournemouth University, UK
• Lorraine Brown - Bournemouth University, UK
• Immy Holloway - Bournemouth University, UK
• Description

• early steps in the research process

• choosing your an approach

• methods of data collection

• analysing the data

• writing up and disseminating your findings.

This is essential reading for undergraduate and Masters students carrying out a qualitative research project in sport and physical activity and for PhD students looking to refresh their knowledge.   PART ONE: INTRODUCING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN SPORT   Qualitative Research and Its Use in Sport and Physical Activity The Main Characteristics of Qualitative Research

This is a 'must have' book for aspiring qualitative researchers in the field of sport and physical activity. The book is well structured, providing the researcher with a step-by-step guide to the processes that need to occur to undertake methodologically sound qualitative research. It is intellectual and yet pragmatic which makes this a book that I will recommend to my PhD students and colleagues alike. Murray Drummond Professor in Sport, Health and Physical Education, Flinders University

This text provides students with an excellent foundation for understanding qualitative research studies and for conducting their own qualitative inquiries, in fields ranging from sport management and marketing to sport sociology and psychology. Paul M. Pedersen Professor and Director, Sport Management Doctoral Program, Indiana University-Bloomington

This book, whilst fairly basic, gives a good overview of qualitative research methods for sport and exercise. This works very well for this introductory research methods module.

This text provides all the relevant details our students will need when planning their research projects. The ethical considerations will be a must for them as it sets out the project in small concise steps.

wonderful book. Focuses on an interesting angles

A useful text that provides learners with relevant information when starting a research project. Further reading would be recommended to explore factors in greater depth. However much of the content is subject specific allowing readers to apply to there own research project.

Very useful book. Split in to easily manageable sections. The students comment it helps them in their assignments.

I have given this book as good overview on Qualitative research methods for students during their independent studies. It allows them to consider the type of methods available to them when making decisions on their research methodology.

I would recommend this text to students searching for a comprehensive overview of appropriate techniques to qualitative research from all levels of degree study. Especially useful for independent projects, a good read.

Really interesting, clear and structured nicely. Will be informing the library to acquire a copy.

This is a useful text in addition to other Research Methods texts. Offers expertise and good views on Qualitative Research as well as providing learners with an alternative angle from which to understand the topic. Excellent to use for further reading due to the plethora of references throughout the text.

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Sport Psychology Research Methods: Qualitative vs Quantitative

Qualitative and Quantitative

Qualitative and quantitative research methods are two commonly used psychological research approaches with very different procedures and objectives. It is important for researchers to understand the differences between these two modes of research in order to determine which approach is best suited to adequately address the research question. The greatest distinctions between these two fundamentally different research techniques are the genesis of theory and the role that theory plays in the mechanics of research. In the quantitative technique, the research effort begins with a theory: a statement that tries to explain observed phenomena. The theory is then operationalized (that is, stated in terms that can be statistically tested) through hypothesis. Data is gathered, statistical tests are completed, and the results are interpreted. The results either support the hypothesis or they do not. (Downey & Ireland, 1979)

Quantitative research is experimental and objective whereas qualitative research is explorative and is not in numerical form. Quantitative research is used to identify evidence of cause and effect relationships and is used to collect data from a larger population than qualitative research (Downey & Ireland, 1979). Aliaga and Gunderson (2000), explain that qualitative research is ‘Explaining phenomena by collecting numerical data that are analyzed using mathematically based methods’. It is used to quantify attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and other defined variables – and generalize results from a larger sample population.

Quantitative data collection methods are much more structured than qualitative data collection methods. Data collection methods used in qualitative research includes focus groups, triads, dyads, interviews and observation (Creswell, 2013). Qualitative data is descriptive, which is more difficult to analyze then quantitative data which is categorized, ranked, or in units of measurement. One benefit of qualitative research is the ability to observe, collect, and reach data that other methods cannot obtain. It also provides researchers with flexibility in conveying a story without the constraints of formal academic structure (Creswell, 2013). However, Berkwits and Inui (1998) explain that qualitative research is suspect in its usefulness to provide a generalize foundations for clinical decisions and policies.

Qualitative methods derive from a variety of psychological research disciplines and traditions (Crabtree & Miller, 2012). Different in many ways from quantitative research; yet qualitative research does have a quantitative connection. Qualitative research, also recognized as preliminary exploratory research, is used to capture communicative information not conveyed in quantitative data about beliefs, feelings, values, and motivations that trigger behaviors. They are used to learn directly from the participant what is important to them, to provide the context necessary to understand quantitative findings, and to identify variables important for future clinical studies (Crabtree & Miller, 2012). Qualitative research provides insights into the problem and helps to develop ideas or hypotheses for potential quantitative research.

Examining Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is primarily used in investigative research to explore a phenomenon. Creswell (2013) explains that qualitative methods should be used to study complex subjects and topics. Some subjects in which qualitative analysis is the methodology of choice include but are not limited to education, biology, behavior, health care, psychology, human resources, as well as societal issues such as cultural and racial issues, social norms and stigmas. The use of qualitative research is appropriate when the researcher wants to answer questions or solve a problem by collecting data to generate a theory or hypothesis.  Qualitative research uses context and a non-judgmental approach to attempt to understand the phenomena in question from the subject’s point of view and is used to capture expressive information not conveyed in quantitative data about beliefs, values, feelings, and motivations that underlie behaviors (Berkwits & Inui, 1998). Qualitative research is a form of inquiry that analyzes information observed in natural settings.

Qualitative Research is also used to uncover trends in thought and opinions, and dive deeper into the problem. Qualitative data collection methods vary using unstructured or semi-structured techniques. Some common methods include focus groups (group discussions), individual interviews, and participation/observations. The sample size is typically small, and respondents are selected to fulfill a given quota. There are four philosophical assumptions of qualitative methodology recognized in psychological research: ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology.

Qualitative research comes from a variety of psychological research disciplines and traditions (Crabtree & Miller, 2012). It is a unique research approach because it allows research access to information that goes beyond quantitative measure. However, the main weakness of the qualitative approach is that it is difficult to provide generalizable foundation for scientific decisions and procedures behaviors (Berkwits & Inui, 1998). It is important to mention that some qualitative approaches use technical methods (such as statistical content analysis) to determine the significance of findings, while others rely on researchers thoughtful reflection (Crabtree & Miller, 2012).

Examining Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is experimental and objective. The objective of quantitative research is essentially to collect numerical data to explain a particular phenomenon (Hoe and Hoare, 2012). By using measurable data researchers are able to formulate facts and uncover patterns in research. The quantitative approach involves a systematic empirical investigation of a phenomenon using numerical data. It is used to identify evidence of cause and effect relationships, as well as collect data from a larger population than qualitative research (Downey & Ireland, 1979).

When conducting a quantitative study researchers use statistical tests to analyze research data. Quantitative data collection methods include various forms of surveys, face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, longitudinal studies, website interceptors, online polls, and systematic observations. For researchers using the quantitative technique, data is primary and context is secondary. This means that researchers gather data that can be counted, but the context in which the data is observed is not very important to the process. The data is analyzed and rational conclusions are drawn from the interpretation of the resulting numbers (Downey & Ireland, 1979).

Researches elect to use quantitative research when their research problem and questions are best suited to being answered using quantitative methods. Quantitative research is designed to quantify a research problem by way of generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into useable statistics. There are four main types of research questions best suited for quantitative research. The first type of question is a question demanding a qualitative answer (Hoe and Hoare, 2012). For example, how many I/O psychology students are currently enrolled at Capella. The second type of questions is when numerical can only be studies using quantitative methods (Hoe and Hoare, 2012). For example, is the number of I/O psychology students enrolled at Capella rising or falling? The third type of question concerns understanding the state of a phenomenon, such as the contributing factors (Hoe and Hoare, 2012). For example, what factors predict the recruitment of I/O psychology students to attend online universities? The final type of question best suited for quantitative methods is the testing of hypotheses?

There are three quantitative research approaches: (1) experimental, (2) quasi-experimental, and (3) non-experimental. Variables are the foundation of quantitative research. Variables are something that takes on different values or categories. The experimental approach is used to study the cause and effect relationship of variables, specifically the independent and dependent variables. This approach involves the use of true random assignments of variables for analysis. The defining characteristic of the experimental approach involves the manipulation of the independent variable. The quasi-experimental approach is similar to the experimental approach however the main difference is that it does not include the use of randomly assigned variables. The final quantitative research approach, non-experimental, is a comparative approach that differs from experimental because there is no manipulation of the independent variable or random assignment of variables (Leedy & Ormrod, 2013). Sources of references: Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Leedy, P. D., & Ormrod, J. E. (2013). The nature and tools of research. Practical research: Planning and design , 1-26.

I am working with a student on the use of psych testing with athletes and in sport psychology. Can you provide me with any advice, any publications to get, or authors/ researchers to follow?

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Qualitative Research Questions: Gain Powerful Insights + 25 Examples

We review the basics of qualitative research questions, including their key components, how to craft them effectively, & 25 example questions.

Einstein was many things—a physicist, a philosopher, and, undoubtedly, a mastermind. He also had an incredible way with words. His quote, "Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted," is particularly poignant when it comes to research. 

Some inquiries call for a quantitative approach, for counting and measuring data in order to arrive at general conclusions. Other investigations, like qualitative research, rely on deep exploration and understanding of individual cases in order to develop a greater understanding of the whole. That’s what we’re going to focus on today.

Qualitative research questions focus on the "how" and "why" of things, rather than the "what". They ask about people's experiences and perceptions , and can be used to explore a wide range of topics.

The following article will discuss the basics of qualitative research questions, including their key components, and how to craft them effectively. You'll also find 25 examples of effective qualitative research questions you can use as inspiration for your own studies.

Let’s get started!

What are qualitative research questions, and when are they used?

When researchers set out to conduct a study on a certain topic, their research is chiefly directed by an overarching question . This question provides focus for the study and helps determine what kind of data will be collected.

By starting with a question, we gain parameters and objectives for our line of research. What are we studying? For what purpose? How will we know when we’ve achieved our goals?

Of course, some of these questions can be described as quantitative in nature. When a research question is quantitative, it usually seeks to measure or calculate something in a systematic way.

For example:

• How many people in our town use the library?
• What is the average income of families in our city?
• How much does the average person weigh?

Other research questions, however—and the ones we will be focusing on in this article—are qualitative in nature. Qualitative research questions are open-ended and seek to explore a given topic in-depth.

According to the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry , “Qualitative research aims to address questions concerned with developing an understanding of the meaning and experience dimensions of humans’ lives and social worlds.”

This type of research can be used to gain a better understanding of people’s thoughts, feelings and experiences by “addressing questions beyond ‘what works’, towards ‘what works for whom when, how and why, and focusing on intervention improvement rather than accreditation,” states one paper in Neurological Research and Practice .

Qualitative questions often produce rich data that can help researchers develop hypotheses for further quantitative study.

• What are people’s thoughts on the new library?
• How does it feel to be a first-generation student at our school?
• How do people feel about the changes taking place in our town?

As stated by a paper in Human Reproduction , “...‘qualitative’ methods are used to answer questions about experience, meaning, and perspective, most often from the standpoint of the participant. These data are usually not amenable to counting or measuring.”

Both quantitative and qualitative questions have their uses; in fact, they often complement each other. A well-designed research study will include a mix of both types of questions in order to gain a fuller understanding of the topic at hand.

If you would like to recruit unlimited participants for qualitative research for free and only pay for the interview you conduct, try using Respondent  today. 

Crafting qualitative research questions for powerful insights

Now that we have a basic understanding of what qualitative research questions are and when they are used, let’s take a look at how you can begin crafting your own.

According to a study in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, there is a certain process researchers should follow when crafting their questions, which we’ll explore in more depth.

1. Beginning the process 

Start with a point of interest or curiosity, and pose a draft question or ‘self-question’. What do you want to know about the topic at hand? What is your specific curiosity? You may find it helpful to begin by writing several questions.

For example, if you’re interested in understanding how your customer base feels about a recent change to your product, you might ask: 

• What made you decide to try the new product?
• How do you feel about the change?
• What do you think of the new design/functionality?
• What benefits do you see in the change?

2. Create one overarching, guiding question 

At this point, narrow down the draft questions into one specific question. “Sometimes, these broader research questions are not stated as questions, but rather as goals for the study.”

As an example of this, you might narrow down these three questions: 

into the following question: 

• What are our customers’ thoughts on the recent change to our product?

3. Theoretical framing 

As you read the relevant literature and apply theory to your research, the question should be altered to achieve better outcomes. Experts agree that pursuing a qualitative line of inquiry should open up the possibility for questioning your original theories and altering the conceptual framework with which the research began.

If we continue with the current example, it’s possible you may uncover new data that informs your research and changes your question. For instance, you may discover that customers’ feelings about the change are not just a reaction to the change itself, but also to how it was implemented. In this case, your question would need to reflect this new information: 

• How did customers react to the process of the change, as well as the change itself?

4. Ethical considerations 

A study in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education stresses that ethics are “a central issue when a researcher proposes to study the lives of others, especially marginalized populations.” Consider how your question or inquiry will affect the people it relates to—their lives and their safety. Shape your question to avoid physical, emotional, or mental upset for the focus group.

In analyzing your question from this perspective, if you feel that it may cause harm, you should consider changing the question or ending your research project. Perhaps you’ve discovered that your question encourages harmful or invasive questioning, in which case you should reformulate it.

5. Writing the question 

The actual process of writing the question comes only after considering the above points. The purpose of crafting your research questions is to delve into what your study is specifically about” Remember that qualitative research questions are not trying to find the cause of an effect, but rather to explore the effect itself.

Your questions should be clear, concise, and understandable to those outside of your field. In addition, they should generate rich data. The questions you choose will also depend on the type of research you are conducting: 

• If you’re doing a phenomenological study, your questions might be open-ended, in order to allow participants to share their experiences in their own words.
• If you’re doing a grounded-theory study, your questions might be focused on generating a list of categories or themes.
• If you’re doing ethnography, your questions might be about understanding the culture you’re studying.

Whenyou have well-written questions, it is much easier to develop your research design and collect data that accurately reflects your inquiry.

In writing your questions, it may help you to refer to this simple flowchart process for constructing questions:

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25 examples of expertly crafted qualitative research questions

It's easy enough to cover the theory of writing a qualitative research question, but sometimes it's best if you can see the process in practice. In this section, we'll list 25 examples of B2B and B2C-related qualitative questions.

Let's begin with five questions. We'll show you the question, explain why it's considered qualitative, and then give you an example of how it can be used in research.

1. What is the customer's perception of our company's brand?

Qualitative research questions are often open-ended and invite respondents to share their thoughts and feelings on a subject. This question is qualitative because it seeks customer feedback on the company's brand. 

This question can be used in research to understand how customers feel about the company's branding, what they like and don't like about it, and whether they would recommend it to others.

2. Why do customers buy our product?

This question is also qualitative because it seeks to understand the customer's motivations for purchasing a product. It can be used in research to identify the reasons  customers buy a certain product, what needs or desires the product fulfills for them, and how they feel about the purchase after using the product.

3. How do our customers interact with our products?

Again, this question is qualitative because it seeks to understand customer behavior. In this case, it can be used in research to see how customers use the product, how they interact with it, and what emotions or thoughts the product evokes in them.

4. What are our customers' biggest frustrations with our products?

By seeking to understand customer frustrations, this question is qualitative and can provide valuable insights. It can be used in research to help identify areas in which the company needs to make improvements with its products.

5. How do our customers feel about our customer service?

Rather than asking why customers like or dislike something, this question asks how they feel. This qualitative question can provide insights into customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a company. 

This type of question can be used in research to understand what customers think of the company's customer service and whether they feel it meets their needs.

20 more examples to refer to when writing your question

Now that you’re aware of what makes certain questions qualitative, let's move into 20 more examples of qualitative research questions:

• How do your customers react when updates are made to your app interface?
• How do customers feel when they complete their purchase through your ecommerce site?
• What are your customers' main frustrations with your service?
• How do people feel about the quality of your products compared to those of your competitors?
• What motivates customers to refer their friends and family members to your product or service?
• What are the main benefits your customers receive from using your product or service?
• How do people feel when they finish a purchase on your website?
• What are the main motivations behind customer loyalty to your brand?
• How does your app make people feel emotionally?
• For younger generations using your app, how does it make them feel about themselves?
• What reputation do people associate with your brand?
• How inclusive do people find your app?
• In what ways are your customers' experiences unique to them?
• What are the main areas of improvement your customers would like to see in your product or service?
• How do people feel about their interactions with your tech team?
• What are the top five reasons people use your online marketplace?
• How does using your app make people feel in terms of connectedness?
• What emotions do people experience when they're using your product or service?
• Aside from the features of your product, what else about it attracts customers?
• How does your company culture make people feel?

As you can see, these kinds of questions are completely open-ended. In a way, they allow the research and discoveries made along the way to direct the research. The questions are merely a starting point from which to explore.

This video offers tips on how to write good qualitative research questions, produced by Qualitative Research Expert, Kimberly Baker.

Wrap-up: crafting your own qualitative research questions.

Over the course of this article, we've explored what qualitative research questions are, why they matter, and how they should be written. Hopefully you now have a clear understanding of how to craft your own.

Remember, qualitative research questions should always be designed to explore a certain experience or phenomena in-depth, in order to generate powerful insights. As you write your questions, be sure to keep the following in mind:

• Are you being inclusive of all relevant perspectives?
• Are your questions specific enough to generate clear answers?
• Will your questions allow for an in-depth exploration of the topic at hand?
• Do the questions reflect your research goals and objectives?

If you can answer "yes" to all of the questions above, and you've followed the tips for writing qualitative research questions we shared in this article, then you're well on your way to crafting powerful queries that will yield valuable insights.

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Asking the right questions in the right way is the key to research success. That’s true for not just the discussion guide but for every step of a research project. Following are 100+ questions that will take you from defining your research objective through  screening and participant discussions.

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You’re on a business trip in Oakland, CA. You've been working late in downtown and now you're looking for a place nearby to grab a late dinner. You decided to check Zomato to try and find somewhere to eat. (Don't begin searching yet).

• Look around on the home page. Does anything seem interesting to you?
• How would you go about finding a place to eat near you in Downtown Oakland? You want something kind of quick, open late, not too expensive, and with a good rating.
• What do the reviews say about the restaurant you've chosen?
• What was the most important factor for you in choosing this spot?
• You're currently close to the 19th St Bart station, and it's 9PM. How would you get to this restaurant? Do you think you'll be able to make it before closing time?
• Your friend recommended you to check out a place called Belly while you're in Oakland. Try to find where it is, when it's open, and what kind of food options they have.
• Now go to any restaurant's page and try to leave a review (don't actually submit it).

What was the worst thing about your experience?

It was hard to find the bart station. The collections not being able to be sorted was a bit of a bummer

What other aspects of the experience could be improved?

Feedback from the owners would be nice

What did you like about the website?

The flow was good, lots of bright photos

What other comments do you have for the owner of the website?

I like that you can sort by what you are looking for and i like the idea of collections

You're going on a vacation to Italy next month, and you want to learn some basic Italian for getting around while there. You decided to try Duolingo.

• Please begin by downloading the app to your device.
• Choose Italian and get started with the first lesson (stop once you reach the first question).
• Now go all the way through the rest of the first lesson, describing your thoughts as you go.
• Get your profile set up, then view your account page. What information and options are there? Do you feel that these are useful? Why or why not?
• After a week in Italy, you're going to spend a few days in Austria. How would you take German lessons on Duolingo?
• What other languages does the app offer? Do any of them interest you?

I felt like there could have been a little more of an instructional component to the lesson.

It would be cool if there were some feature that could allow two learners studying the same language to take lessons together. I imagine that their screens would be synced and they could go through lessons together and chat along the way.

Overall, the app was very intuitive to use and visually appealing. I also liked the option to connect with others.

Overall, the app seemed very helpful and easy to use. I feel like it makes learning a new language fun and almost like a game. It would be nice, however, if it contained more of an instructional portion.

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25 Essential Qualitative Research Questions with Context

• Health and Well-being:

Question: How do individuals with chronic illnesses perceive and manage their overall well-being?

Context: This question aims to explore the subjective experiences of individuals living with chronic illnesses, focusing on their perceptions of well-being and the strategies they employ to manage their health.

Question: What are the experiences of teachers implementing project-based learning in high school science classrooms?

Context: This question delves into the qualitative aspects of teaching practices, seeking to understand the lived experiences of teachers as they implement a specific instructional approach (project-based learning) in a particular academic context (high school science classrooms).

Question: How do marginalized communities perceive and navigate social inclusion in urban environments?

Context: This question addresses the sociological dimensions of social inclusion within urban settings, focusing on the perspectives and strategies of marginalized communities as they navigate societal structures.

• Psychology:

Question: What are the coping mechanisms employed by individuals facing post-traumatic stress disorder?

Context: This question explores the psychological experiences of individuals dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, aiming to uncover the qualitative aspects of coping strategies and mechanisms.

• Anthropology:

Question: How does a specific cultural group express identity through traditional rituals and ceremonies?

Context: This anthropological question focuses on cultural practices and rituals as expressions of identity within a specific cultural group, aiming to uncover the meanings and functions of these traditions.

• Gender Studies:

Question: What are the lived experiences of transgender individuals in the workplace, particularly regarding inclusion and discrimination?

Context: This question within gender studies explores the qualitative dimensions of transgender individuals’ workplace experiences, emphasizing the nuanced aspects of inclusion and discrimination they may encounter.

• Environmental Studies:

Question: How do local communities perceive and respond to environmental conservation efforts in their region?

Context: This question addresses the intersection of environmental studies and sociology, aiming to understand the qualitative perspectives of local communities toward conservation initiatives, exploring their perceptions and responses.

• Business and Management:

Question: How do employees perceive leadership styles and their impact on workplace culture?

Context: Within the realm of business and management, this question explores the qualitative aspects of organizational culture, focusing on employees’ perceptions of leadership styles and their influence on the workplace environment.

• Technology and Society:

Question: What are the social implications and user experiences of emerging technologies in the context of augmented reality applications?

Context: This question within the field of technology and society investigates the qualitative dimensions of user experiences and social implications related to the adoption of augmented reality applications.

• Communication Studies:

Question: How do individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds interpret and respond to media representations of body image?

Context: This question explores the intersection of communication studies and cultural studies, aiming to understand the qualitative variations in how individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds interpret and respond to media depictions of body image.

• Political Science:

Question: What are the public perceptions and attitudes toward government policies on climate change?

Context: Within political science, this question delves into the qualitative aspects of public opinion, seeking to understand how individuals perceive and respond to government policies related to climate change.

• Cultural Studies:

Question: How do international students experience acculturation and adaptation in a foreign academic environment?

Context: This question within cultural studies explores the qualitative dimensions of acculturation and adaptation, focusing on the experiences of international students within the context of a foreign academic environment.

• Family Studies:

Question: How do families navigate and negotiate roles and responsibilities in the context of remote work?

Context: In the domain of family studies, this question addresses the qualitative aspects of family dynamics, examining how families navigate and negotiate roles and responsibilities in the context of remote work.

• Public Health:

Question: How do community members perceive and engage with public health campaigns aimed at promoting vaccination in underserved urban areas?

Context: This public health question investigates the qualitative aspects of community perceptions and engagement with vaccination campaigns, particularly in urban areas with limited access to healthcare resources.

• Urban Planning:

Question: What are the experiences of residents in gentrifying neighborhoods regarding changes in their community dynamics, affordability, and social cohesion?

Context: Within urban planning, this question explores the qualitative dimensions of gentrification, focusing on residents’ lived experiences and perceptions of neighborhood transformations.

• Literature and Cultural Criticism:

Question: How do contemporary authors use literature to critique and challenge societal norms around gender roles and identity?

Context: In the realm of literature and cultural criticism, this question examines the qualitative dimensions of literary works, exploring how authors use their craft to challenge and critique societal norms related to gender.

• Social Work:

Question: What are the perceptions of social workers regarding the challenges and opportunities in providing mental health support to homeless populations?

Context: This social work question addresses the qualitative aspects of mental health support within homeless populations, exploring social workers’ perspectives on challenges and opportunities in their roles.

• Tourism and Hospitality:

Question: How do tourists from different cultural backgrounds experience and interpret authenticity in local culinary traditions?

Context: Within tourism and hospitality, this question explores the qualitative aspects of cultural experiences, focusing on tourists’ perceptions and interpretations of authenticity in local culinary traditions.

• Media and Entertainment:

Question: How do audiences engage with and interpret representations of diverse identities in streaming platforms’ original content?

Context: In the realm of media and entertainment, this question investigates the qualitative dimensions of audience engagement and interpretation of diverse identities in content produced by streaming platforms.

• Historical Studies:

Question: What are the narratives and memories of individuals who lived through a significant historical event, and how have these narratives evolved over time?

Context: Within historical studies, this question explores the qualitative aspects of personal narratives and memory, investigating how individuals recall and frame their experiences of a significant historical event.

• Linguistics:

Question: How do multilingual individuals navigate language use and identity in diverse linguistic environments?

Context: In the field of linguistics, this question delves into the qualitative dimensions of language use and identity, focusing on how multilingual individuals navigate linguistic diversity in their environments.

• Cybersecurity:

Question: What are the perceptions and behaviors of employees in organizations regarding cybersecurity practices, and how do these perceptions influence organizational security?

Context: Within cybersecurity, this question explores the qualitative aspects of employees’ perceptions and behaviors related to cybersecurity practices, examining their impact on organizational security.

• Human-Computer Interaction:

Question: How do users experience and adapt to voice-controlled virtual assistants in their daily lives, considering factors such as privacy concerns and usability?

Context: In human-computer interaction, this question investigates the qualitative aspects of user experiences with voice-controlled virtual assistants, considering factors such as privacy concerns and usability challenges.

• International Development:

Question: How do local communities perceive and negotiate the impacts of international development projects on their cultural and economic landscapes?

Context: This international development question explores the qualitative dimensions of community perceptions and negotiations regarding the impacts of international development projects, considering cultural and economic factors.

• Sport Psychology:

Question: What are the psychological experiences and coping mechanisms of athletes during periods of extended competition hiatus, such as the postponement of major sporting events?

Context: In sport psychology, this question delves into the qualitative aspects of athletes’ psychological experiences and coping mechanisms during extended competition hiatus, such as the postponement of major sporting events.

These additional detailed examples provide a broader perspective on qualitative research questions, covering diverse fields of study and highlighting the nuanced inquiries within each domain.

Interested in learning more about the fields of product, research, and design? Search our articles here for helpful information spanning a wide range of topics!

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Qualitative Research in Sport Management

DOI link for Qualitative Research in Sport Management

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Good qualitative research can help sport management researchers and industry professionals solve difficult problems and better understand their organisations, stakeholders and performance. Now in a fully revised and extended new edition, this book is a user-friendly introduction to qualitative methods in sport management. Covering the full research process from research planning to reporting results, this edition includes expanded coverage of cutting-edge areas including digital and social media research, critical realism, and social network analysis.

The book examines the reflective and interrogative processes required for developing effective qualitative research questions and includes a deeper discussion of ontology and epistemology in the light of today’s rapidly changing society. It takes the reader step-by-step through essential and emerging qualitative methods, from actor network theory and ethnography to computer-assisted data analysis and sampling typologies. Every chapter includes examples of real qualitative research, including shorter "research briefs" and extended case studies, reflecting the exciting qualitative research that is currently occurring in sport business and management, and highlighting the links between research and sport management practice.  

This is essential reading for courses in sport management, sport business, sport policy, sport marketing, sport media, and communications. It provides students, researchers, and practitioners with the knowledge and skills to undertake qualitative research while deepening their understanding of how the social world can be perceived and interpreted through a particular theoretical lens.

Useful online materials include recommended readings and PowerPoint slides.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1 | 56  pages, the context of sport management research, chapter 21 | 24  pages, the nature and usefulness of qualitative research for sport management, chapter 2 | 30  pages, research paradigms and methodology in qualitative sport management research, part 2 | 72  pages, planning the sport management 
research process, chapter 583 | 12  pages, sampling in qualitative research, chapter 4 | 24  pages, establishing reliability and validity in qualitative inquiry, chapter 5 | 18  pages, reflexivity in sport management research, chapter 6 | 16  pages, research ethics for qualitative sport management research, part 3 | 40  pages, foundations of sport management research, chapter 1307 | 38  pages, methods of data collection for sport management research, part 4 | 30  pages, analysing the sport management data, chapter 1708 | 28  pages, modes of analysis in sport management research, part 5 | 252  pages, paradigms used in sport management research, chapter 2009 | 36  pages, action research and sport management research, chapter 10 | 8  pages, deconstruction in sport management research, chapter 11 | 22  pages, case study in sport management research, chapter 12 | 18  pages, discourse and critical discourse analysis in sport management research, chapter 13 | 14  pages, ethnomethodology and sport management research, chapter 14 | 20  pages, ethnography and sport management research, chapter 15 | 24  pages, emerging ethnographies and sport management research, chapter 16 | 14  pages, gender theories and sport management research, chapter 17 | 22  pages, grounded theory and sport management research, chapter 18 | 16  pages, narrative inquiry in sport management research, chapter 19 | 18  pages, phenomenology and sport management research, chapter 20 | 38  pages, new directions for sport management research, part 6 | 28  pages, digital tools for qualitative research, chapter 45221 | 26  pages, social media research methods in sport management, part 7 | 38  pages, writing the sport management research report, chapter 48022 | 36  pages, research preparation and the sport management 
research report.

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Qualitative Research on Sport and Physical Culture: Volume 6

Table of contents, qualitative research on sport and physical culture, research in the sociology of sport, copyright page, list of contributors, introduction: the practice of qualitative research and thinking qualitatively.

In assembling a research design using qualitative methods, what we are really doing is building bridges between the ways that we see the world and the ways that we think it would be best examined and explained. Another way of saying this is that qualitative methods link ontology, epistemology and the Millsian sociological imagination ( Mills, 1959 ).

Chapter 1 Historical Methods and Traces of the Past: Embracing the Complexities and Engaging in Reflexivity

Purpose – This chapter explores various approaches to historical methods as they relate to sport and physical culture research.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter discusses various paradigmatic approaches to historical methods (reconstructionist, constructionist and deconstructionist) and takes up current debates related to archives, newspapers, photographs and oral history as they relate to the method. Drawing on these discussions, I outline various approaches to designing a sport and physical culture project using historical methods, focusing on my work on women's industrial sport in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Findings – I discuss how data evolved from the method and how I made choices about the inclusion and exclusion of materials. The chapter concludes that historical methods are tedious, complex and messy but also exciting and insightful ways to do research. I also conclude by encouraging the researcher to be reflexive and aware of one's ‘positionality’ as a researcher and embrace the historical process.

Originality/value – The chapter is original work. It is not so much a prescriptive ‘how-to’ guide for historical research, but it works to take up current debates in historical methods. It also endeavours to engage students and scholars alike as they consider their research projects and the potential value of historical methods.

Chapter 2 The Empirical Strikes Back: Doing Realist Ethnography

Purpose – This chapter explores a traditional mode of ethnography referred to as ‘realist ethnography’ as it relates to sport and physical culture (SPC) research.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter discusses different approaches to ethnography, but principally addresses a realist ethnography I conducted on Ashtanga yoga in Canada.

Findings – I discuss how data evolved from the realist ethnographic method, and outline the manner in which ethnographic research is as a ‘way of life’. The chapter concludes that the realist ethnographic method is not untenable, as some authors suggest, but rather a viable and exciting mode of knowledge production in the SPC field.

Originality/value – The chapter is original work. It makes a case for the retention of realist ethnographies in our methodological lexicon, and illustrates the empirical process of writing culture. It also endeavours to engage students and scholars alike regarding the value of ethnographic methods more broadly.

Chapter 3 The Ethnographic (I)nterview in the Sports Field: Towards a Postmodern Sensibility

Purpose – The purpose of the chapter is to introduce interviewing as an exploratory research approach for understanding the lived experiences of individuals and groups in sports and physical cultural contexts. The author draws on her own research with snowboarders to illustrate some of the standard and unique issues related to conducting interviews as part of ethnographic fieldwork.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter begins with a brief history of the development of qualitative interviews and their various uses in sport studies. The author then provides a description of her use of ‘postmodern-inspired’ interviews as part of a broader ethnographic study of snowboarding culture. Following this, she adopts an alternative representational approach to illustrate some of the practical, ethical, political and embodied issues for reflexive researchers working in the critical paradigm and conducting interviews in sport and physical cultural fields.

Findings – The chapter illustrates the value of a postmodern approach to interviewing that recognises the interview as more than textual, and gives greater consideration to the affective, sensuous, relational, embodied and socio-spatial dimensions of each interview event.

Research limitations/implications – The chapter examines the strengths and limitations of qualitative interviewing, with particular attention to the potential and perils of interviewing in the sports field.

Originality/value – The chapter provides a succinct introduction to the use of interviewing in sport and physical culture, and makes an innovative contribution by focusing on ethnographic interviews.

Chapter 4 Narrative Analysis in Sport and Physical Culture

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to outline what narrative inquiry entails, why it is relevant for the study of sport and physical culture and how researchers might engage in its analytical methods.

Design/methodology/approach – Narrative inquiry as an approach, not simply a method, is delineated in this chapter. The design of a project is outlined. Three types of narrative analysis – holistic-content, holistic-form and meta-autoethnography – are the focus. The chapter also attends to the benefits of using multiple forms of analysis and representation as part of engaging with the methodology of crystallisation.

Findings – Key findings of narrative research on sport and physical culture are illuminated throughout.

Research limitations/implications – The limitations of narrative analysis are highlighted, including how in many narrative studies the interactional dynamics of storytelling are often neglected.

Originality/value – The chapter provides a succinct introduction to why narratives matter, how narrative analysis as a craft might be practised and what theoretical assumptions underpin it. The authors also highlight innovative practices for deepening understandings of sport and physical culture. These include time-lining, mobile interviewing, analytical bracketing, crystallisation, meta-autoethnography and analysis as movement of thought.

Chapter 5 Visual Methods in Physical Culture: Body Culture Exhibition

Purpose – The purpose of the chapter is to introduce visual methods and, more specifically, arts-based forms of visual methods, as an innovative and emerging research approach within the study of sport and physical culture. The chapter examines the use of art and aesthetics as research data and as a representation issue. It draws upon the case of a research-based arts exhibition to represent and communicate research on bodies.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter details an international collaborative research project exploring the impact of health policies and their imperatives on schools in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. The research formed the focus of an arts-based exhibition involving artists’ interpretations of the authors’ research findings. The chapter addresses salient epistemological and ontological issues of ‘representation’ and ‘interpretation’ in visual methods.

Findings – The chapter reveals how the use of arts-based approaches to research do not simply ‘represent’ research, but are constructive in the generation of new insights and forms of knowledge.

Research limitations/implications – The challenges of using arts-based and visual approaches to research are highlighted, particularly in terms of issues of knowledge interpretation. The ways in which these methods allow for lines of sight into life that written texts do not are highlighted.

Originality/value – The chapter provides an introduction to the use of arts-based visual methods in sport and physical culture research. Rather than focusing on visual methods solely as an approach to the collection of data, the chapter extends the discussion around visual methodology to include its use as a form of interpretation that generates and translates knowledge from a new perspective.

Chapter 6 Media Analysis in Physical Cultural Studies: From Production to Reception

Purpose – To discuss the history and relevance of audience research as it pertains to sport and physical culture and to demonstrate an approach to doing audience research.

Design/methodology/approach – A step-by-step overview of a study conducted by the authors is provided. The study examined ways that groups of young males in a Vancouver, Canada, high school interpreted images of masculinity in popular media, and ways these same youth performed masculinity in physical education classes. We reflect on how studying interpretations (using focus groups) and lived experiences (using participant observation and in-depth interviews) in an integrated fashion was helpful for understanding the role of media in the everyday lives of these youth. We also describe how the hegemony concept guided our data interpretation.

Findings – We highlight how, on the one hand, the young males were critical of media portrayals of hegemonic forms of masculinity and, on the other hand, how these same males attempted to conform to norms associated with hegemonic masculinity in physical education classes. We emphasise that our multi-method approach was essential in allowing us to detect the incongruity between youth ‘interpretations’ and ‘performances’.

Research limitations/implications – Limitations of audience research are discussed, and the epistemological underpinnings of our study are highlighted.

Originality/value – The need for audience research in physical cultural studies is emphasised. We suggest that researchers too often make claims about media impacts without actually talking to audiences, or looking at what audiences ‘do’ with information they glean from media.

Chapter 7 Critical Feminist/Queer Methodologies: Deconstructing (Hetero)Normative Inscriptions

Purpose – The purpose of the chapter is to introduce queer feminist cultural studies methodologies. For illustrative purposes, the chapter draws upon one specific study of locker room space undertaken by the author.

Design/methodology/approach – The design of the locker room study is delineated, including methods of data collection and analysis: self-reflective narratives, interviews, text and discourse analysis. Issues of contextualisation and insight into the use of queer feminist cultural studies methodologies to study normative geographies are foregrounded.

Findings – Findings acknowledge the systems of knowledge production that cohere around gendered and (hetero)sexed normative and non-normative bodies in locker room spaces.

Research implications – There is no quintessential queer methodology, which is a drawback to researchers trying to forge their way in this area. Instead, all interrogations and interpretations start from a critique of the (hetero)normative discourses and practices of gender and sexuality that take place at the expense of non-normative experiences.

Originality – The chapter provides an overview of queer feminist cultural studies theories and methodologies, for those unfamiliar with this post-positivist and counter-hegemonic approach. The author suggests that queer feminist cultural studies methodologies provoke us to ask the following questions: What new thoughts does my work make possible to think? What new emotions does my work make possible to feel? What new sensations and perceptions does it open up for diverse subjectivities? Such questions take researchers in new and exciting directions.

Chapter 8 Embodied Research Methodologies and Seeking the Senses in Sport and Physical Culture: A Fleshing out of Problems and Possibilities

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to differentiate between a sociology of the body and an embodied sociology, prior to considering what this might mean in methodological terms for those wishing to conduct research into the senses and the sensorium in sport and physical culture.

Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken involves reviewing the work of those who have already engaged with the senses in sport and physical culture in order to highlight an important methodological challenge. This revolves around how researchers might seek to gain access to the senses of others and explore the sensorium in action. To illustrate how this challenge can be addressed, a number of studies that have utilised visual technologies in combination with interviews are examined and the potential this approach has in seeking the senses is considered.

Findings – The findings confirm the interview as a multi-sensory event and the potential of visual technologies to provide access to the range of senses involved in sport and physical culture activities.

Research limitations/implications – The limitations of traditional forms of inquiry and representational genres for both seeking the senses and communicating these to a range of different audiences are highlighted and alternatives are suggested.

Originality/value – The chapter's originality lies in its portrayal of unacknowledged potentialities for seeking the senses using standard methodologies, and how these might be developed further, in creative combination with more novel approaches, as part of a future shift towards more sensuous forms of scholarship in sport and physical culture.

Chapter 9 Autoethnography: Situating Personal Sporting Narratives in Socio-Cultural Contexts

Purpose – To introduce autoethnography as an innovative research approach within sport and physical culture, and consider its key tenets, strengths and weaknesses. For illustrative purposes, the chapter draws upon two specific autoethnographic research projects on distance running – one collaborative and one solo.

Design/methodology/approach – The design of the two projects is delineated, including methods of data collection and analysis: tape-recorded field and ‘head’ notes, personal and analytic logs, phenomenological, thematic and narrative data analysis. Issues of representation are addressed and the chapter explores salient, but often-overlooked, ethical considerations in undertaking autoethnographic research.

Findings – Key findings of two research projects are presented, cohering around issues of identity construction and identity work, together with lived body and sensory experiences of distance running.

Research limitations/implications – The limitations of using an autoethnographic approach are discussed, including in relation to fulfilling traditional, positivistic judgment criteria such as validity, reliability and generalisability; more appropriate criteria are proposed, particularly in relation to evocative autoethnographies. Novel forms of the genre: collaborative autoethnography and autophenomenography, are suggested as future directions for autoethnographic research in SPC.

Originality/value – The chapter provides a succinct introduction to the use of autoethnography in sport and physical culture, for those unfamiliar with the genre. The author also suggests an innovative variation – autophenomenography.

Chapter 10 Two (or more) Feet are Better than one: Mixed Methods Research in Sport and Physical Culture

Purpose – The chapter outlines mixed methods as a recursive and co-operative approach to research. In doing so, it challenges the dominant conception of ‘real’ mixed methods research as requiring the use of methods from both qualitative and quantitative frameworks by outlining not only logistic and pragmatic issues requiring the attention of researchers but also the underlying philosophical tensions inherent in mixed method designs.

Design/methodology/approach – The process of designing a mixed methods project that investigated the sociological and phenomenological impact of running shoes is outlined with reference to the various pragmatic and epistemological considerations of the project.

Findings – Many researchers require mixed methods to draw on both quantitative and qualitative techniques. However, this chapter demonstrates that such an understanding of mixed methods marginalises critical and interpretivist techniques. It is argued that studies of sport and physical culture have frequently used more than one research method. However, in order for these to be considered mixed methods studies, an explicit attempt is required to connect each technique of data collection and analysis, regardless of the research paradigm in which they operate.

Research limitations/implications – The limitations of mixed methods designs are discussed in relation to pragmatic and logistic concerns as well as the difficulty of connecting methods that present different underlying philosophical assumptions.

Originality/value – This chapter demonstrates the design of a mixed methods project from the initial process of identifying a research problem through to data collection, analysis and publication.

Chapter 11 Truth or Dare: Examining the Perils, Pains and Pitfalls of Investigative Methodologies in the Sociology of Sport

Purpose – Good investigative sociology and high-quality investigative journalism are not just the same but they are close relatives. For both professions, getting under the surface soil of social life, digging deeply into and making coherent sense of the social experience of others, and translating those findings and interpretations into a universal language for widespread consumption are hugely challenging tasks. Understanding the difference and similarities regarding how sociologists and investigative journalists go about this task raises fundamental philosophical, epistemological, ethical, methodological, theoretical and practical concerns, the outline considerations of which are all featured in this chapter.

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing upon more than three decades of investigative research experience in the field and the original and the innovative personal scholarship that this has yielded, the chapter offers students a map reader's guide of how to navigate a way through the complex, challenging and sometimes hazardous labyrinth of investigative qualitative research.

Originality/value – In addition to offering a ‘how to’ primer for thinking about and doing investigative-qualitative sociology, the chapter also offers advice on how to survive the experience and authoritatively tell the tale well to the widest possible audiences.

• Kevin Young
• Michael Atkinson

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